This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

The Commission on Presidential Debates won't allow Barack Obama to use a teleprompter at Friday's first of three debates. That's too bad for the Democratic candidate as he as often struggled through debates whether it was with Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden during the primary or with himself at Saddleback Church.

By the way, despite John McCain's suggestion that the debates be postponed until Congressional leaders get an agreement on the bail-out before we all wind up on the corner selling apples, short of a total break down, the debate will go forward with both both McCain and Obama. During McCain's meeting at the White House today, the Bushies, the Congressional Dummycrats and Repugs will come to Jesus mighty quick and agree on a good plan. Obama will look like a deer in the headlights, surrounded by annoying Democrats like Pelosi and Reid who won't be able to help him. Advantage: Johnnie Mac.

And finally for the ludicrous suggestion that neither McCain nor Palin want to debate here are two points for you. First, it was McCain not Obama who proposed a weekly series of multiple debates that Obama shot down. Secondly, don't worry about Sarah Palin debating Joe Biden. She should have no trouble going against a guy who asks people in wheelchairs to stand up like he's a faith healer, thinks that President Roosevelt went on television in 1929 and that Barack's commercials are terrible.

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is spending millions of dollars on television ads in Virginia, staffing 43 offices and sending the candidate and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., to every corner of the state.

But Obama has apparently overlooked one important element of a successful campaign in Virginia: stocking up on those venerable lawn signs.

Across the state, Democratic officials are clamoring to get hold of free Obama yard signs but are being told that none are available or that they have to buy them from the candidate's Web site. It can take weeks to get them delivered.

The frustration of volunteers and Democratic officials over the campaign's inability to provide the signs is nearing a boiling point in some parts of Virginia. As signs for GOP nominee John McCain sprout in neighborhood after neighborhood, some Democrats are starting to fear that their failure to win the lawn sign war could in a small way cut into Obama's ability to carry Virginia.

It's only getting worse for John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis. Following the news that Davis was paid $2 million over five years as president of an advocacy group set up by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the New York Times now reports that Freddie Mac paid Davis's lobbying firm $15,000 a month up until last month. The firm was kept on the payroll because of Davis's close ties to McCain. The news comes after McCain insisted that Davis has had no involvement with Freddie Mac for several years, leading progressive bloggers to wonder whether McCain lied to Americans or whether Davis lied to McCain. Either way, liberal bloggers are irritated by the lies and secrecy and the fact that Davis did next to nothing for the money he received. They're also skewering the statement McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb published denying the allegations, calling it a "nondenial" and a "complete mess." One blogger says the news should be "absolutely devastating" to the campaign. It's unclear whether Davis will continue as McCain's campaign manager. [US News and World Report]

Obama is a nerd dressed up by the Democratic Party Kingmakers to look like a leader - Dean and Pelosi annointed him from the beginning and did their best to knock the other older women (Pelosi can't stand competition) like Ferraro and Hillary out of the way and even tarnish their reputations so badly, they hope they'll never get up.

Obama spent his years at Columbia locked away in his room studying and reading, as he admits, a hermit. Never any leadership or social tendencies until he suddenly decided to oust his former mentor and take over her Chicago machine, as a "younger version" of herself. Sound familiar, knocking the experienced woman out of the way, claiming to be "a fresh voice?"

Never took a stand in Senate either state or federal if he could help it, then claimed he didn't vote for the war like Hillary when he wasn't even there.

He spins fantasies about a better world like in "It's a Small World," never any substance. And now with the financial bailout of billions and the Dems waking up to fact there's no sudden exit from Iraq without it being overrun by Iran and other forces, there's NO WAY there's any money for his universal healthcare or other schemes. Though he MIGHT still try to hand out what's left of the struggling middle class to the poorest of the poor.

He grew up in Indonesia attending an Indonesian-language school with mostly Muslims until the age of 10. He claims there were Christians there too, but anyone who's spent time in a Muslim country knows how tenuous and hidden Christian identities are there -- Obama was part of the predominant culture. His white mother remarried an Indonesian man and totally assimilated.

No wonder the "Muslim" identity of Rev. Wright's hero Louis Farrakhan appealed to Obama as a way to fuse the two parts of himself, Muslim and "liberation theology" Christian. But Wright and Farrakhan hating whites and Jews, with Obama sitting at Wright's feet for 20 formative years, tells me what's in Obama's soul.

This is a guy who only moved to Hawaii at the age of 10, having lived in that Muslim world with an Indonesian Muslim stepdad. He has no "feeling" for being an American or certainly an average American boy. Any more than do the Mexican "leaders" we have here in Cal, from Nunez and Padilla to locals Cardenas, Huizar, Reyes, Romero, even Texas-born Alarcon. These people are always for "la Raza" first and foremost, using their position for "their people" and if you listen to their own words at all those Latino celebrations, they're the first to admit it.

Obama's the same and while his background could have been useful in advisory capacities to leaders who are clueless about anything outside of America, he's in NO position to represent America. It's just not in him.

I say this as someone who doesn't like McCain, and worry that his tinny voice fused onto a frame that makes him an OLD 72 from his war wounds and melanoma and thousand pages of med records gives us a very fragile leader. Saying he's only one-term means starting this painful, endless election cycle again too soon. Palin's a fool -- never even had a passport until 07.

Still, Obama's past and personality are so murky, so conflicted and atypical of anything Americans can relate to or vice versa, I don't trust him. Plus he can't speak without a telepromter and has a crazy ego.

Of course, the more all this is true the harder Kool-Aid drinking Democratic leftists cry "racism! xenophobia!" and deny it. Lord help us if this man is President.

953 Dumbass 946 not only fails to tell the truth about the Keating Scandal but fails to answer his own question in that yes indeed McCain did produce something out of the Keating mess called "McCain-Feingold" (which Bush HATES by the way).

I don't see how they can prevent Obama from having a telepromter in the room. That is his 1st Amendment RIGHT! His freedom of expression. You can't prevent him from bringing in his teleprompter any more than you can prevent someone from wearing a shirt with some printed words on it.

And after all, when he meets with world leaders, they will let him bring the teleprompter.

You've seen people who are stuck walking around attached to an oxygen tank. Barack will be attached to this damn teleprompter all his career.

Maybe if McCain doesn't show up at the debate, he can use the teleprompter for a karaoke screen and the crowd could have a big karaoke party with Barack's teleprompter.

BUT, he might have to leave and take it with him if he is needed.

I wonder if he has the teleprompter in his bedroom at night with Michelle during foreplay.

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be myreplacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect thefunds.

9:28. Lawn signs. This is one of those "ask any political consultant" (Republican or Democratic) issues. They will all tell you that they don't want to waste money, but especially the manpower to get them up and replace them when they are torn down. Signs only go up when a candidate insists upon it to feed their ego, or in very small local races when TV and radio aren't realistic means of communication.

11:28 & 12:12. It used to be that you racists hid under white sheets. Now you hide inside of blogs. I feel sorry that you live lives that are so dominated by hatred.

Looking for a Barack Obama yard sign to plant in your front yard? Good luck. These days, it’s easier to find a pair of those rimless titanium peepers Sarah Palin’s made famous – and they go for $375, considerably less than the $8 the Obama campaign charges for a yard sign.

Eager and happy to getting in a dig or two when informed of Obama’s signage fee, John McCain’s Midwest campaign spokeswoman, Wendy Riemann, said McCain yard signs come free of charge. "We’d never charge anyone for them. Folks in Missouri,” she giddily continued, "can walk into any of our nearly dozen victory offices around the state and get a free sign."

When Obama’s Olive Street headquarters – the largest of the campaign’s 29 field offices across Missouri – opened July 31, the place was fully stocked with hundreds of yard signs. They went like hotcakes and within a month, the cupboard was empty and hasn’t been replenished.

Debbie Mesloh, Missouri campaign spokeswoman, told me she’s at a loss to explain why the yard signs have dried up and that she has not idea when or if a new shipment will arrive anytime soon.

My MBA brain thinks that both the save our pension fund (yes on bailout) crowd and the (let the fools go under with no bailoutand let the market do its thing)both have very good points. The reality is that no one really knows for sure how either strategy will play out.

Aside from all the money, I think the "power" aspect is most worrisome.

I have this nagging feeling (perhaps with a dab of paranoia) that sadly the system is being manipulated by those who are beyond borders or national loyalties who are intent on claiming their stake as the 4th branch of the US govt to further.

Like most folks sending those email missives to help "transfer" funds, they aren't only satisfied with the first check the guillable ones send - it's that they know they can totally get more in the future. In this case it's much more than our money, it's really the much more nefarous than that.

Something the haters of palin aren't able to grasp. If they continue to call her all their little pet names for her the expectations for her are lowered while biden is expected to mop the floor with her.

When biden starts talking nonsense and makes a couple gaffes while palin just has to be simply average she comes out ahead.

If the democrats were as smart as they believe they are they would talk about how good she's going to do. If she only does average it's a let down, biden comes out looking good.

But I guess that's why someone like bush has beaten the democrat nominee the last couple years.

Maybe someday the democrats can figure out why their candidates never run on their true principles and always have to track towards the middle in the general election. It's telling that the democrat nominees even know their agenda isn't America friendly.

How could Obama OR McCain benefit from a teleprompter at a debate that is supposed to be impromptu?Can anyone who actually KNOWS the answer explain this?

Obama comes off real bad when talking without the teleprompter.

Did you watch the saddleback debate? What kind of an answer is "above my pay grade."

For being such a good speaker with a teleprompter he mumbles a lot and fills the empty space in his thoughts with ums, ers, and other vocal gimmicks to kill time as he tries to find the right words. It's not that he isn't smart, he is of course, he just goes over all the options in his head as to not say anything wrong. Instead of just being honest and speaking from his heart his words are calculated.